The book of first Corinthians is a practical letter written to the needs of mankind. Earlier in chapter 2 Paul declared that the approach to his ministry among these people was limited to the very basics of what it is to be a convert to Jesus Christ. Paul spoke several languages and had an excellent education, but the Corinthians didn’t need to have learning. They needed the Lord! There were those within the circle of the church who operate according to their own human nature and understanding. Really there are only two kinds of human disposition: spiritual and nature. Him Another word for carnal is natural. So, we can ask ourselves what is a natural man’s nature and how different is it from the spiritual man’s nature?
The motives of a natural man are different. They are within the scope of his own understanding. That is why some people say they do not understand about the nature of God being a loving God and a God who has wrath for sin. Such a person’s thinking is within the scope of the tangible and the physical. Recently, I saw on TV a suppose, well-recognized physicist who spoke nonsense even though he was attributed to being highly educated. He talked about the efforts to prove or disprove that there is a God. A person like this also operates within the scope of their own personal profit. This does not necessarily mean financial profit. It could be anything that benefits them in some way or the other according to their own rationale.
The means of gratification for a natural person is different from that of a spiritual person. They invest in this world only if there is some feedback, some profit in one way or the other. We might say this person behaves out of the goodness of their heart, but the reality is they get some feedback that gratifies themselves. It’s so unfortunate that an unregenerate person must constantly be reassuring himself. Nothing to him is abundantly clear. Emotionally and spiritually, this is like walking on thin ice. One reason the natural person rejects Christ is that they must do so constantly to maintain themselves and their pleasures. They live in a pitiful environment without even knowing it. Without being willing to recognize it, they are the center of their own universe.
Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley both sang a song, “I did it my way.” On the one hand it’s a beautiful song and well-meaning, but on the other hand there is a deep-seated intention that they are the master of their own life which is different from that of a believer. This also includes the lack of recognition for the value and authority of the Bible. This is a major stumbling block for many people who reject Christ because they have to get to a place in which they are willing to admit the error of their ways. The person that is able to have a reliable foundation on which to build his life is to submit to the Lordship of Christ. The natural man is unwilling to do this. When the rich young ruler came to Christ asking what he must do so that he could be assured of going to heaven, Jesus touched a nerve by telling him to give away all he had so that he could follow Jesus. We all know that he turned away sorrowfully because his real God was the material possessions he had. It is every man that first is natural who has yet to commit all that he has for use by God.
The purpose of this blog is twofold. Any spiritually unborn person falls in the category that I’ve just mentioned. That person must be willing to change by what is called in the Bible repentance which is a complete turnaround. The second reason for writing this blog is to remind those who profess Christ as their Savior to look around in their own separate worlds noticing the people that surround them to in desperate need of their sins to be addressed by the atoning blood of Jesus. We cannot let people that we claim to love go without some type of witness for their need to transition from being a natural person to a spiritual person.
Christian Writer 